• weltschmerz •

Notes: Today's Good Word shares an initial constituent with a previous Good Word, weltanschauung "world outlook". Because German capitalizes all nouns, we may capitalize weltschmerz if we wish; however, since it is now a firmly established English word and English does not capitalize common nouns, we are not obliged to do so. Don't forget, though, (1) the C between the S-H at the beginning of the word or that (2) W is still pronounced [v] as in German.

In Play: Most of us who have succeeded in the industrialized world have a sense of regret for the suffering elsewhere in the world: "Because of her sense of weltschmerz, Mildred gives to every world charity that rings her up or drops her a line." World charities depend on it. Of course, not all of us who help in other countries around the world do so out of anything so vague as weltschmerz: "I don't build schools in Africa out of weltschmerz but because I love the people there."

Word History: Today's Good Word may have been coined by the German writer Jean Paul Richter, from Welt "world" + Schmerz "pain", but it certainly was popularized in German literature by Heinrich Heine. Welt was originally a Germanic compound *wer-ald- "life or age of man" from wer- "man" + ald "old, age". The stem wer- made it to Old English as were "man", where it combined with wolf to give us the word for the wolf-man, werewolf, before dying out. Wer-ald itself, of course, became world in English. A relative of were in Latin is vir "man", the root of the English borrowing, virile "manly". (Today we thank Mark Bailey, someone who helps the world's suffering by suggesting excellent words like today's for our series.)

Germans have dubbed these "mammutwörter" (mammoth words,) itself a compound. Whenever I see a mammutwörter I imagine linked railroad cars: "Ya, Hans, the words couple like this--'welt' (clank) 'schmertz.'"

Some of the mammutwörter are very amusing:

der Unterhosenbügler = a man who irons his underpants der Festnetztelefonierer = a man who telephones using a land-line der Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (the Danube Steamship Navigation Company Captain) (Not recommended for asthmatics.)

I understand there is a movement in Germany to decouple mammutwörter with hyphens for the sake of readability. Still, I enjoy a number of these "linked German railroad cars," "gekoppeltdeutschwaggons."

Any metaphor emphasizing the clunkiness of these words is probably in accordance with my own weltanschauung. Pronouncing Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän would induce some weltschmerz in the most angst free lumpenproletariat.

I was laboring through Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän and was doing pretty well. Then I decided to cheat and use Google translation. It worked like a charm. It means "Danube steamship company captain". Now I feel guilty not working it out myself. I do pretty well at the pronunciation, at least it sounds good to me.

English compound words are obviously not as long as some German compound words. Compound words in English usually take the path of being 1) two separate words used together, 2) the two words separated by a hyphen, and 3) the full compound words. Sometimes prefixes are not sure of themselves and suffer a hyphen as in co-operate. My father was an agriculturalist and was president of some co-operative farm service companies.